I. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to methods and systems for reporting customer feedback. More particularly, the present invention relates to reporting cable customer data regarding preferences for entertainment on-demand viewing as well as system usage information for content viewing systems.
II. Background Information
Customer feedback reporting is a process for providing data to a content operator, for example, a cable operator, about customer preferences and usage in order for the content operator to better serve their customers. Also, the data about customer preferences could further be provided to a content provider which sells content to the content operator to determine which content to further pursue and which content to stop producing. In some situations, such data would reside in several areas in a content operator's business structure, and can vary depending on a particular market in which the customer resides. The data can also be difficult to assemble in a timely manner, which could delay important decisions by the content operator regarding customer services.
For example, a movie listing, for example, “Star Wars” Episode III, may be very popular for customer viewing in San Diego, Calif., but customers in Orange County, California may prefer viewing “Madagascar.” In addition, customers in a particular market may prefer viewing an original series produced by a content provider, for example, HBO's “The Soprano's”, instead of viewing movies provided by the content operator. The conventional strategy for providing such data includes acquiring information that can be gleaned from customer billing records, for example, where a customer purchases an on-demand viewing of “Madagascar”. This often causes problems because the conventional strategy does not obtain information concerning content viewing when the customer has a subscription for viewing content provided by a content provider, for example, HBO. Thus, any data regarding customer viewing habits for HBO on-demand is difficult to obtain. In addition, any data regarding customer viewing habits or customer problems with viewing content is not assembled into a format which is easily discernable by the content operator's technical support staff, customer service staff or any other segment within the content operator's company. Thus, the content operator cannot make timely changes to content or determine areas in which content is not being received by customers.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for methods and systems for reporting customer data more efficiently. Furthermore, there is a need for reporting customer data in a manner which is useful for content operators for making decisions about content available to customers in an on-demand format and for providing data about customer preferences to a content provider.